“…When I was a member, Opus Dei would take teenagers as young as fourteen, and they had to make a lifelong commitment to the movement. Minors are still instructed not to tell their parents about Opus Dei because they wouldn’t understand…”

“…Opus Dei is a culture built on a foundation of fear, deceit, and paranoia. It was born under the terrible threat from communism. To survive, it had to hide, to pretend, to lie. Outsiders have no right to know anything about it. It’s Orwellian, it rewrites history: pages are torn out of old internal pamphlets and new pages are stuck in to fit the current thinking. It’s members go to confession only with priests who are also members of Opus Dei. They believe that any means more or less justifies the end. And now it is one of the strongest powers in the Vatican, thanks in no small degree to the pope himself.”

“…When we went to have a chaser after a game, I saw that Navarro-Valls had a brown mark around his thigh. It was the mark of the cilicio, the chainmail band that he wore for up to two hours a day. That’s a requirement for members. It’s got pointed metal spikes fixed to it; they scratch the skin and make you bleed. It’s supposed to be worn tight during Lent.

Members also whip themselves; it’s up to you how much. Christ on the Cross showed his love by suffering, so you should do the same thing. At least, that’s the argument. But the turth is, creating suffering for yourself is artificially pointless. It doesn’t achieve spirituality; it’s a form of arrogance.”—quote of Monsignor Vladimir Felzmann from chapter 9, City of Secrets: The Truth Behind the Murders at the Vatican, by John Follain, 2003

“Over time, I saw that the faithful of the Prelature, following his [Escriva’s] teachings…to approach Holy Communion reverently, and often to remain in silent Thanksgiving after Mass…whose own priesthood was enlivened or even revived as they rediscovered the centrality of the Eucharist in their interior and professional life.

“I never knew Bl. Josemaria in life…I did watch the movies. Particularly moving were his get-togethers with hundreds of priests in Spain and Latin America. To hear his teachings on the Eucharist and the holy Mass from his own lips, was powerful. He spoke with clarity, at times almost shouting, in demanding that they live up to their specific vocation to be “another Christ, Christ himself,” particularly in all that referred to the Eucharist.

“I presently work at an Archdiocesan agency called “The Catholic Information Center” in downtown Washington DC, two blocks away from the White House. The Center provides a first class Catholic bookstore, rooms for meetings, classes, and spiritual direction, and confessionals that are often in use.

“There come to the Center each day people from all ethnic and professional backgrounds, from U.S. Senators, Presidential candidates, well known television personalities, to postal workers and government clerical workers.

“However, at the heart of it all is the Holy Mass at noon each today, celebrated reverently, to make the Lord present in the heart of our Nation’s Capital, so that the people fed by the Eucharist, can give thanks, and gain the spiritual nutrition to be heralds of the new evangelization in the midst of their important professional work, whatever it might be.

“After Holy Mass, we expose the Blessed Sacrament for three hours of adoration. Many stop by for minutes, few or many, to adore, give thanks, ask for pardon, or express sorrow…His teachings have helped them truly to unite their everyday work with the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass.”
Given as a talk at the Blessed Josemaria Centenary Conference in Rome, January 7–12, 2002